All posts tagged Financial News

The Wall Street Journal’s colleagues at Financial News have unveiled their sixth annual list of the 100 most influential women in European financial markets. This year’s list is dominated by those negotiating the plethora of new rules governing every single aspect of the industry.

Of the 100 women on the list, a fifth are actively involved in regulatory reform. Four are Members of the European Parliament, three are regulators, six campaign for industry lobby groups, two co-ordinate think tanks and the others represent their firms to policy makers as well as helping their firms digest, respond to and comply with the latest proposals.

The list also includes 15 chief executives, three chairmen, two chief operating officers, three chief investment officers and a chief financial officer. Ten are partners, five run firms they founded and more than half are heads of their departments, either regionally or globally.

Methodology: Financial News canvassed the market to build a long list of nearly 350 nominees. All nominees had to be based in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and working in FN’s areas of coverage: investment banking, asset management, hedge funds, private equity, pensions, exchanges, trading, market infrastructure or regulation, and advisory and lobbying efforts that impact these sectors. Nominees were then assessed by FN’s editorial panel on their influence and leadership over their company and market sector, as well as their performance over the past year and achievements throughout their career to date.

To read profiles of all the FN100 Influential Women, visit Financial News.

The Seychellois government has issued a license to establish the country’s first ever exchange operator, called Trop-X Limited, according to a statement. Trop-X can now push ahead with plans to build a multi-asset, multi-currency securities exchange, which is expected to begin operating later this year.

Pierre Laporte, finance, trade, and investment minister in the Seychelles, said in a statement: “The launch of the stock exchange in Seychelles is much awaited. It will be an important milestone toward the modernisation of our financial system and our economy as a whole.” Trop-X will begin operations with the launch of an equities platform in the fourth quarter of 2012, comprising three boards: a main board, a venture capital board, and a small and medium-enterprise board. The exchange plans to launch bonds and derivatives during the first half of next year.

It may not have suggested full separation but the proposals from the Independent Commission on Banking published Monday—if fully implemented—will leave the investment banking arms of U.K. banks hanging on to their parent companies by only a few thin threads of gristle and sinew.

And the ICB appears to hope that the dead hand of the markets will then wield the scalpel to ensure full amputation.

The team working with Sir John Vickers knows that under European Union laws there’s no point demanding full separation because it can’t stop the universal banks from other member states from owning U.K. retail banks. If, for example, the U.K. government forced the Royal Bank of Scotland to break up, there would be nothing to stop, say, Deutsche Bank from buying the retail operation (as long as there weren’t any competition issues).

But the Vickers report seems to have come as close to full Glass-Steagal-style separation of retail and investment banking separation as it possibly can.

The recent plunge has led many analysts to revise down their FTSE forecasts, but by how much? Financial News asked industry experts for their end-of-year projections.

Danny Cox, head of advice at Hargreaves Lansdown

End-of-year forecast: 6,200

“If you’re predicting these things into the future, you’re likely to end up with egg on your face. The difficulty is we could be wildly wrong. At the start of the year we thought it’d be about 6,400, or in that region. Obviously we expect that to be a bit lower now, at about 6,200 or thereabouts. Despite the entire world crashing around our ears, companies are looking fairly sound. Providing the politicians can sort out the debt crises then there’s no reason why the markets can’t move upwards.”

Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin

End-of-year forecast: Probably between 5,500 and 6,000

“When I was looking at prospects for this year at the end of last year, I did feel it wasn’t going to be an easy year. I had about 6,450 as the target. Considering where we are and the difficulties that confront us now, that looks pretty far-fetched. I’ve not yet revised it to a number I feel happy with yet. If we get back to 6,000 that’d be great, though we’re probably talking between 5,500 and 6,000. The major influence on markets this year has been the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. It’s still an open issue as to what the end game is going to be. Because of that, and because the response of the managers of the eurozone, including the ECB, have been very laggard, the markets are still very uncertain about how things are going to evolve.”